Yesterday, Chicago Bears coach Marc Trestman announced that he would be benching Jay Cutler and starting Jimmy Clausen in this coming Sunday's game against the Detroit Lions. It's about damned time! After Chicago lost to Dallas two weeks ago and were eliminated from the playoffs, I thought the Bears would put Cutler on the bench. When I turned on last Thursday's game against the Saints and saw Cutler step onto the field for the first drive, I stopped watching the game.

Is the Bears organization going to look through Cutler and blame only Trestman?

What more was there to see in Jay Cutler? How could he not have conclusively proven that he is a bust? Why weren't the Bears taking the opportunity to test out Clausen and / or David Fales for the remainder of this dead season? It seemed so stupid! Heck, if Clausen could win games or spark the offense back to life, it could save Trestman's job. It would be solid evidence that the Bears poor season was mostly on Cutler's shoulders, and not on Trestman's. Again, the Bears looked good last year with Josh McCown playing during Jay Cutler's injury, so Trestman and the Bears have already proven that they can be successful with other quarterbacks.

Well, Trestman and Emery finally smartened up and realized that Cutler isn't the guy. But now they only have two games to examine the potential of Clausen, and it seems unlikely that they'll bother with rookie David Fales. If I had been coach, I would have given Clausen one game as starter and given Fales one game as starter, then give the third game to whichever of the two performed better. It would let me know whether Fales is a keeper, or if I should look to the draft for yet another quarterback. The big question will be: can either quarterback successfully run Marc Trestman's west coast-style offense?

UPDATE December 23, 2014: Cutler to start final week against Vikings due to Clausen injury

Jimmy Clausen started against the Lions last Sunday, but still wasn't able to provide a spark of life to Chicago's offense. He didn't do anything special, and he also threw a game-ending interception. He also apparently suffered a concussion. As such, Chicago is back to starting Jay Cutler this coming Sunday in the season-finale against the Vikings.

I think Trestman is making a bad decision by starting Cutler. If I were in charge, I'd give the game to rookie David Fales. There is no better crucible for testing a new quarterback than with a meaningless late-season game. Even if he isn't fully prepared, playing him will help the coaches to identify his weaknesses and problem areas against a starting NFL defense in a live game. And if the coaches and management don't see anything redeeming in Fales play, then they will know that he isn't worth keeping on the roster and potentially hurting the team's chances in future seasons if the starter(s) ahead of him go down with injury.

Playing Cutler, on the other hand, only risks getting Cutler hurt and destroying any possibility of a trade.

I'm going to write this one off as yet another bad decision in a very long, sad history of bad football decisions in Chicago...

I was looking forward to a breakout year for the Bears. I even drafted Jay Cutler in one of the later rounds in one of my fantasy football leagues expecting him to have his best season ever and be a top-tier quarterback. All the pieces were in place. And the defense being a liability seemed to be even more promising, since Cutler would have to play from behind more often, giving him plenty of opportunity to put up huge numbers.

But then the season started, and my excitement was almost completely squashed by losing the season opener in overtime to the Bills.

But I never feared it would get this bad!

The Bears have only three wins in the first ten weeks of the season, and the past three losses have been embarrassing. A loss to the Dolphins in which the Bears couldn't even score more than 14 points. And now two straight games against the Patriots and Packers that were both over by halftime. And the loss to the Packers came after a bye!

The Bears are failing at every level of play. The offense can't move the ball or score points. Special teams hasn't done anything special. And teams are cutting through the Bears' defense like butter. The defense at least has the excuse of injuries. Charles Tillman is out for the year, and Lance Briggs just returned from a multi-week injury. But that doesn't justify giving up over 100 points in two weeks, nor does it justify the defense being the statistically worst defense that the team has ever had in its 90-plus-year history.

The Bears' defense has set franchise records for awfulness.

But as bad as the defense is, it wasn't expected to be very good. New coach Mark Trestman is an offense-oriented coach, and the defense is old and has lost some of its best talent (like Brian Urlacher).

What is disappointing is that despite being the most "talented" and hyped offense that the team has ever seen, the offense is completely inept. It's as bad as the post-SuperBowl Rex Grossman offense!

The Bears don't even look like a professional football team right now.

The Chicago Bears have lost a lot of veteran leaders and stars this past couple seasons since Marc Trestman took over as head coach. I wasn't terribly surprised when Brian Urlacher became a free agent and retired, although I was extremely disappointed that he would not be back in a Bears' uniform. Earlier this offseason, return specialist Devin Hester was released and signed with the Atlanta Falcons. Hester was one of the most electric players in the league in his prime, and he was a huge factor in making me watch football (and specifically the Bears) on a more regular basis. These guys were probably my two favorite players, and neither of them is a Bear anymore.

And now, yet another elite veteran leader has departed from the team. 16-year veteran longsnapper Patrick Mannelly has retired.

Longsnappers are unheralded players. You won't find any action figures or jerseys for Mannelly in sporting goods stores, nor would you even find Mannelly in the rosters of some Madden NFL video game (that I can recall); although, I would always add him to my roster every year before starting a franchise. But whether he's a household name or not, Mannelly was a cornerstone of the Chicago Bears' special teams for 16 years! His precision has been a key factor to the success of the special teams unit, which has been widely considered an elite unit during Lovie Smith's era. In his 2006 Pro Bowl acceptance speech, kicker Robbie Gould praised Mannelly specifically for his role in Gould's kicking success (Gould is currently one of the most accurate field goal kickers in NFL history).

Jay Cutler can take as long as he wants to return from his groin injury. No rush.

Josh McCown is looking fantastic in Cutler's absence. He played very well against the Redskins, but the defense just couldn't stop them. He also played exceptionally well against the Packers, including managing a late game scoring drive that ate up almost a full 9 minutes of the fourth quarter clock to seal the win for the Bears.

In fact, McCown played a near perfect game against the Packers. Trestman's gameplan was very aggressive, and he put the game squarely in McCown's hands early on. He hardly missed any throws, and the few incompletions were usually the result of a receiver dropping the ball (Marshall had several drops). I only noticed two or three throws that looked significantly off the mark, and every one of them was a very safe miss. On top of that, McCown made several good plays under duress, including some scrambles for first downs and weaving around the pocket in order to sling the ball out to a receiver. And he did all of this without losing his chewing gum!

I have to say that I am not surprised that the Chicago Bears decided to fire Lovie Smith after the second late-season collapse by the team that lead the division the first half of the year. I also agree with the decision, mostly. During the entire tenure of Lovie Smith, the Bears' offense has been incompetant. Lovie is a great defensive mind, but I'm just not sold on his ability as a head coach. And judging by the fact that no other teams hired him, I guess I'm not the only one who had doubts.

The Bears went through several offensive coordinators during Smith's time, including the revolutionary mind of Mike Martz, but the team's offense remained abysmal throughout. They changed quarterbacks, changed offensive linemen, changed running backs, and rotated through a number of receivers. They even changed stadiums. The only constant was Smith.

The firing of Lovie Smith just further expands my concerns with the Bears' defense. I've already expressed fear that the defense is getting old and that veterans like Brian Urlacher, Lance Briggs, and Charles Tillman just might not have much left in their tanks. The window is definitely closing for these players, and they can't afford to wait around for several "rebuilding" years in order to become championship contenders again. I want to see Brian Urlacher win a SuperBowl with the Chicago Bears, but if the team's new coaching staff isn't able to fix Chicago's offensive woes, while maintaining strength on defense, then it doesn't look like Urlacher will get that ring. At least, not with the Bears.

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